U.S. Slightly Reduces Tariff on Moroccan Phosphate Giant OCP

16.60%. This is the new countervailing duty rate that the United States imposes on the Moroccan giant, OCP, "for alleged subsidies", including the provision of mining rights at a cost lower than their actual value. In other words, importers of phosphate fertilizers produced by OCP in the United States will have to pay countervailing duties equivalent to 16.60% of the value of the imported goods. Previously, the rate was 16.81%. A rate applicable retroactively to exports to the United States since the year 2022 and also payable by U.S. Customs in the event of imports of phosphate fertilizers from today until 2026.

In setting the new rate, the U.S. Department of Commerce said it had "corrected an administrative error" in the final results of the administrative review of the countervailing duty order on phosphate fertilizers from Morocco. This correction concerns the calculation of the countervailing duties applied to OCP S.A., the main Moroccan producer. The identified error lay in the inadvertent exclusion of allocated debt costs in the calculation of OCP’s total cost of production, the department said in a statement.

This correction "is based on Section 751(h) of the Tariff Act of 1930 and regulation 19 CFR 351.224(e), which authorize the correction of ministerial errors, defined as calculation errors or administrative errors," it is specified. On November 12, OCP had identified two potential errors in the calculations of the final results initially published the same day. The Department of Commerce "rejected one of the considerations, considered to be a methodological choice. However, it recognized the second as a ministerial error justifying a revision".

Dissatisfied, OCP challenged the final results before the U.S. Court of International Trade. As a result, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will be instructed to suspend the liquidation of the entries concerned until the deadline (90 days after publication) for filing a statutory injunction request has expired.